you're not lazy; you just care too much (Patreon)

1.7 again!

procrastination, as a word, is fine.
i was curious as to the etmylogical root, and oddly the word has basically been unchanged through several languages in documented linguistic history until you get down to crastinus, "belonging to tomorrow," and the roots for that are unclear.

related, i also see there used to be an alternative word 'procrastinating' that was just 'tomorrowing' and i kind of think that's delightful.

anyway, unlike perfectionism, the problem with "procrastination" is not the word itself; it's how people use it.

usually self-applied, we self-critically say we are procrastinating something to mean that we are being Lazy about it.
it has these connotations that it is based in short-sighted laziness, that by procrastinating, we are indulging in some kind of inherent personal flaw.

writing personal stories is one thing, and i think common wisdom has even already started to shift to understand this:
many times when someone is procrastinating something, it is because they want to do it well, and do not have either the knowledge or confidence to do so.

having said that, i don't really feel the need to expound on that too much in and of itself.
we can contrast that usage against the usual candidates for the word-- things like Homework and Chores that people don't really actually want to do but know they have to.
those are things that ostensibly get procrastinated for reasons other than wanting to do a voluntary activity well,
and so when we are using the same word to refer to both of those use-cases, it really conflates the understanding of the voluntary case into the same sort of tomorrowing "laziness" without encouraging the speaker to examine and be accountable for the underlying cause of that feeling of not wanting to do it right now.

the umbrella term is too large, and it shielding us from understanding ourselves and what we need better.

however,
if you're procrastinating homework or chores, is it really laziness even then?

I would argue that in many cases, lazy option is not to put it off to later.
The lazy option is to just not do it.
Or get it out of the way by doing just the worst job imaginable because who gives a shit? Not you, apparently.
Even when procrastinating things like homework and chores-- even if you "don't feel like it"-- they get tomorrowed under the pretense that perhaps then, when you are better rested, less distracted, or etc, you will feel equal to the task.
Perhaps then, you can do a job that is worth doing.

I would also like to remind the class that we ought to all aspire to be humans with agency.
Educational systems and parents both do their utmost to suck the purpose and agency out of us, but at the end of the day, whether you do your homework and chores is a choice that you make.
If you are going to decide to engage in even something that feels like an obligation, chances are you have some reason for doing so.
I often find that [reminding myself of the reasons why I am deciding to do something that I feel like I don't want to do] helps motivate me to actually do it.

Understanding is critical, and whether it is a voluntary project or obligations thrust onto us, branding procrastination as laziness does nothing to help us better understand ourselves or what the actual tangible obstacles in Doing A Thing are.
By saying that you're procrastinating in the sense of being lazy, you are ascribing laziness as a personal trait to yourself, and undermining your own agency and ability to make effective choices for yourself.

so really, even if we are tomorrowing something, the act of putting something off really ought to be linguistically and cognitively detached from the notion of laziness (if such a thing as that even exists)

c: briefly just noting that she did not mention a thing about what she wrote.